Yihe yuan (2006)

Director:

Ye Lou

Writers:

Ye Lou (writer)
Yingli Ma (writer)

Release Date:

18 April 2007 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Country girl Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her lover to study in Beijing. At university...

Plot Keywords:

Student | China | Love | Willow | Aimlessness

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Xueyun Bai	...	Wang Bo
Lin Cui	...	Xiao Jun
Long Duan	...	Tang Caoshi
Xiaodong Guo	...	Zhou Wei
Lei Hao	...	Yu Hong
Ling Hu	...	Li Ti
Chi Le	...	Woman
Meihuizi Zeng	...	Dongdong
Xianmin Zhang	...	Ruo Gu

Also Known As:

Summer Palace (International: English title) (USA) (new title)
Une jeunesse chinoise (France)

Runtime:

France:140 min (Cannes Film Festival) | Netherlands:158 min

Country:

China | France

Language:

Mandarin | German

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:R21 | South Korea:18 | Japan:R-18 | France:U

Filming Locations:

Beijing, China

Company:

Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC)

Trivia:

In September of 2006, director Lou Ye was barred from making movies for five years because the film incorporated footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and wasn't screened for Chinese officials. The Chinese government also demanded that all copies of the film be confiscated.

Quotes:

Yu Hong: I want us to break up.
Zhou Wei: Why?
Yu Hong: Because I can't leave you.

Movie Connections:

Features Les quatre cents coups (1959)

The naked truth, blemishes included

"Because it is only when we make love that you understand that I'm gentle."

That's all the character development I need. This is an ambitious film about the stalled maturation of an idealistic but troubled young woman flanked by the Tiananmen Square protests, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. The film spans a decade and a half from 1987 to 2003 so I guess the misery of Three Gorges Dam couldn't make the final cut. The direction is a little chaotic at times but it reflects the nature of the film and doesn't come off as too much of a liability. The soundtrack is impeccably chosen and the film is ultimately very sad. I was glued to this 140 minute masterpiece. Politics aside, and they are on the side, this is a remarkable film in its honest portrayal of failure, not of personal character necessarily, but of circumstance.

This is another film that got its director and producer banned for five years from making films in China. Maybe it's the full-frontal nudity or the sheer quantity of sex scenes but I don't see the need for hubbub. The film is about a woman's self-reflection on why she finds comfort in the arms of different men. We see her naked inside and out. She is afraid to love out of fear, fear of something she hasn't yet experienced, but isn't that the scariest kind of fear?

There are a number of things wrong with the film, perhaps, but very little could be done to improve it. Great films succeed in spite of their weaknesses. I'm not a fan of off camera narration but it works for me here. It seems additional rather than necessary. There is a maturity to the woman's voice as she narrates with entries from her diary that compliment, do not seem at odds with, the can't quite grow up activities of the woman on screen. In order to get from the Berlin Wall to the Hong Kong Handover, 1989 to 1997, we're treated to narrative on screen text to fill us in on what's happening to the characters. Ordinarily that would be a deal breaker for me, in theory at least, but again, it works. Finally, as if this were a real story about real people, after the final denouement occurs we're given updates on what happened or didn't happen to the principle characters. Frankly, as gut-wrenchingly sad but true as the final scene is I wish it would have just faded to black. But I think it's a tribute to the strength of the characters that I found myself intrigued by the postscript.

Having said that, I think one could argue that from a strictly script perspective a little more fleshing out was in order ... and I don't mean that full-frontally. I think it comes down to this: if you've ever known passionate, poetic, misguided people, you know these people right away. They're part beautiful and part brutal, there's no talking them out of it. That's the point. This film doesn't set out to explain, diagnose, or change its characters. It just wants to show them to you in all their painful glory, and I think it does a very good job of it. Then again, maybe it's just a case of been there, done that.